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We're continuing our journey through DreamLeague Season 22. ESL's major ranking championship continues with the second group stage, where teams determine the future participants of the play-offs.
Among the contenders for passage to the main stage of DL S22, there are Falcons and Xtreme Gaming. The first is a direct contender for the play-offs, but the Chinese team has problems.
We are trying to figure out how this match will end and who will improve their position in the standings.
Let's go.
Falcons shape
Let's open the match with an analysis of the Falcons' form. In this match the team will play as favourites, with odds to win at around 1.7.
Falcons are a Saudi club that is preparing to conquer esports as a whole. The process is still underway, but even this Dota lineup is already hinting at plans to stay here for a long time.
In general, the tag is not new, but they were not able to achieve special fame. All they did was to play at the local Saudi eLeague. They played there in 2020, with TOP-6 and in 2021, with TOP-3 and TOP-1 respectively.
After a pause of a year, decided to return to the professional scene after Valve cancelled the DPC system. Breaking in with a leg.
- Falcons roster: skiter, Malr1ne, ATF, Cr1t, Sneyking.
The roster was assembled according to the "golden roster" principle. We managed to get two players from Tundra Esports, and at the same time champions of The International 2023 Skiter and Sneyking, Cr1t, who previously played for Shopify Rebellion and previously for EG, ATF, who showed a good performance last season in PSG Quest and before that in Nigma with OG, and closed everything with a promising mid laner Marl1ne.
In the MENA region, where Falcons are based, this squad has no competition even at the skilla level. As it happens, the Falcons have already clinched their ticket to Kuala Lumpur 2023.
First, they passed the open qualification without any difficulty, and then, again without much trouble, slammed the closed part of the qualifiers. In the final, by the way, they beat PSG Quest by a score of 3-1. What one and two are doing in the MENA region is not entirely clear, but come on.
At Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show Falcons look very confident so far, which is to be expected. They have already earned their place in the play-offs by coming out of Group B in first place without losing a single game in three matches.
The Falcons started their appearance in the Pinnacle play-offs: 25 Year Anniversary Show with a first round match against Level Up. An easy win took the Falcons to The dudley boys and there the Falcons got their first and only loss of the tournament. They were beaten by The dudley boys, who were given a rematch by the Falcons in the grand final.
In the end, the Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show Falcons took first place and earned $50,000. The triumph at the local championship was the Falcons' first win in the discipline. But not the last.
After winning at Pinnacle, Falcons finished top 6 at ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 and then started to dominate. In 2024, they won 3 qualifiers: at BB Dacha, at DreamLeague Season 22 and ESL One Birmingham at their home in the MENA region.
Just before competing at DL Season 22, Falcons became BB Dacha champions, earning $400,000.
The first day of the DreamLeague Season 22 group stage Falcons went 2-2, which is not bad, but not particularly good either. On the second day, Falcons played to a draw and got a win, thus coming out with 1 win and 3 draws. It was a similar situation on the third day of play. The play-offs were held after a draw with BB Team.
Falcons started the second stage of DreamLeague Season 22 group stage on a good note. They managed to beat GG, and with a 2-0 score, which will add confidence in the following games. Next up was a clean win over OG and the same result against Spirit. All in all, in 3 days, the Falcons have a 3-0 series lead and a 6-0 mapmaking lead. Falcons continued their winning streak with a match against BB, again winning 2-0.
Most popular Falcons heroes
Io (6 matches, 66% win rate), Death Prophet (5 matches, 60% win rate), Chen (5 matches, 60% win rate), Dawnbreaker (4 matches, 75% win rate), Earth Spirit (4 matches, 75% win rate) appeared most often in spades.
Xtreme Gaming uniforms
We continue the match analysis with the analysis of Xtreme Gaming's form. In this match, the Chinese club is playing as number two, with odds to win at around 1.9.
At DPC 2023: China Upper Division, Xtreme Gaming were ranked in the top 5. For a team with such a roster, that result was not just unacceptable, but rather terrible.
The deplorable state of Xtreme Gaming became even more evident after The Lima Major 2023, where Paparazzi and company did not qualify. At the tournament in Peru, only Aster and PSG.LGD showed some promise, while Knights and Ehome, who Xtreme Ledge played in their home league, were suspected of using cheats and ceased to exist after Lima.
However, Xtreme managed to pull itself together. The team called up the experienced Kaka for the fourth position and started to play. Xtreme won their home league with this squad. In this lineup they travelled to Berlin, where they made it to the group stage of The Berlin Major 2023. However, they finished in the top 12, which is not very good.
The third round was a nightmare for Xtreme. They finished in the top 5, which is not a critical indicator, but for teams of Paparazzi and company level, not making it to the Major with not the strongest competition is a failure.
- Xtreme Gaming lineup: Ghost, Paparazzi, JT, XinQ, Dy.
Before the Long Copeg Riyadh Masters 2023, Xtreme Gaming invited XinQ to the team. The PSG.LGD legend was supposed to strengthen the roster, but Xtreme got about the same as they had at the previous championships - Top 16.
They made their debut at The International 2023 - China Qualifier with a match against Aster.Aries. Despite 2-0 on the scoreboard, Xtreme Gaming still had to deal with Aster's youth. They also looked good throughout the qualifiers, but Xtreme was not enough for the grand finals: Azure Ray celebrated their victory and passage to the TI.
The new competitive year started with a performance at BB Dacha Dubai 2024, where they took TOP-8.
Xtreme Gaming finished the first group stage of DreamLeague Season 2024 on the first line of Group B, sharing it with Shopify Rebellion and Aurora.
The second stage of DreamLeague Season 22 started against Team Spirit. One of the main contenders for victory - Spirit - Ledgeili in a full-fledged Bo3, giving Xtreme a brief stay at the top of the standings. However, after a good Long Sogpeg, Xtreme Gaming started to let up: after 4 matches they have 2 wins and 2 losses.
The most popular Xtreme Gaming heroes
The most popular hero of Xtreme Gaming is Storm Spirit. Paparazzi played it 5 times, but won only 2 matches.
We also took Alchemist (4 matches, 75% wins), Phoenix (4 matches, 50% wins), Keeper of the Light (4 matches, 25% wins), Rubick (4 matches, 25% wins).
There was also Pangolier, Underlord, Pugna, Dragon Knight. All heroes appeared 3 times and won 2 matches each.
Head-to-head history
The teams played each other in BB Dacha. Then a clean victory was celebrated by Falcons.
Predicted result of the match Falcons - Xtreme Gaming at DreamLeague Season 22
Bookmakers continue to give good odds for Falcons victory and why not take advantage of it. The club has all the wins in the second round of DreamLeague, so not a single one given away. And against Xtreme, the history of head-to-head meetings also speaks in favour of Falcons.
Bottom line: Falcons win.
